Snapchat Poaches Google Veteran in Engineering Push

Snapchat wants to beef up the technology behind its popular mobile app for disappearing messages.

Peter Magnusson, a former engineering director at Google, has joined the Los Angeles startup as a vice president of engineering, co-founder Bobby Murphy said in an interview. The hiring is part of a talent grab that could add as many as 50 engineers this year to Snapchat’s current team of just 15 developers, he said.